Paul Stennett

The Key to Finally Unlocking Weight Loss

October 11, 2015

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Some guys have all the luck. Maybe this is one of those occasions where you think the grass is greener on the other side.

Some people go through life happy and carefree, living to the fullest, achieving their goals. In their mind, everything is falling in line. And then one day they have a jarring realization. Maybe their daughter runs up to them one day, grinning from ear to ear, love and light in her eyes and says “Why is your tummy so big?” Maybe they get up from the couch to walk the dog and realize they are winded by the time they reach the door.

They ask themselves, “How did this happen?” They were so focused on all their other goals, somehow this one got accidentally left behind. Are you one of those people? If you are, I say lucky you.

“Who the hell is this guy, telling me I am lucky for being overweight?” No, I am not saying that. But in the mindset lottery, you have all the winning numbers. Let me tell you about another type of people and maybe you will understand.

There is another group, of which I was a member, who is so focused on the details. In our minds, we get stuck on how bad we feel about our bodies, even though we may be achieving all our other goals. We are the type of people who get up in the morning, every morning, look in the mirror and are instantly face to face with our dissatisfaction with ourselves.

We’ll never have that “how did this happen?” moment. We may say things like:

“A friend of mine said lately: snap out of it. Just start working out and eating less of blah, blah, blah… Must be easy for him.”

“I used to eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight, sadly, my metabolism has slowed way down”

“My life is too busy right now to work out or cook. I barely have enough time to get ready for work in the mornings”

If you’re reading this and you’re one of these two types, I know that you are nodding your head to this because it’s so true, isn’t it.

No matter which type we are, we can wind up on the self-hate-ville ride. It’s a wild rollercoaster that just keeps going up and down, never stopping. We get to the point where we don’t like our appearance, whether we look in the mirror every morning or our loved one gives us the Pillsbury dough-boy poke one day.

In desperation, we clean out the fridge and start fresh, and work out for a good 2 weeks, maybe a month… but it doesn’t last.

We end up hating ourselves more. Then we get tired of hating ourselves so we get distracted and… what do you know? Here comes the rollercoaster again!

A few months ago I saw that roller-coaster for what it really is, and I know you are seeing it now as well. I learned how to escape the self-hate-ville ride and I want to give you the cheat codes to do the same.

Loving yourself as you are

“It wasn’t until I accepted myself just as I was in this moment, that I was free to change – Carl Rogers“

Now hold on, before you write this off as some corny self-help-mumbo-jumbo-that-you-have-heard-before-and-don’t-buy, give me a chance to prove it.

This is the biggest thing I attribute to my physical transformation. Yes, changing my eating habits was important and yes, working out really helped to build the muscle and speed up my metabolism. But if I were to put my entire experience on a graph, 70% of it would be this.

I used to think “how can I love myself when I am fat? Won’t that make me give up on trying to lose weight?” but the truth is that it’s counter-intuitive.

Hating myself is what made me give up on trying to lose weight. That was the ticket for the ride. Every attempt I made to improve myself, deep in the shadows in the corners of my mind were the feelings that it won’t work… or it won’t make a difference… or it’s too hard and I have to lose too much. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t obese or that I had all the tools I needed to succeed. The self-hate always won.

For example, my wife always tells me she loves me the way I am. Of course I know she loves me, she married me, but in the back of my mind, I would tag a picture of my body with the caption “how could she love someone looking like me”. Every time she would say it, I would get a popup ad of the negative reminder.

No matter what type of guy you are, doesn’t that sound like something you are going through?

As I said, the truth is that it’s counter-intuitive. Meaning, loving yourself will actually influence you to change yourself. It made me feel like I wanted to do better and be better because I am a great person. For you, you may already know the good things within you. If you don’t know why you rock, spend some time today to think about it.

This is how you ignite the rocket that will blast you all the way to your weight loss goal. Everyone has good qualities and bad qualities. I used the good qualities to push me to keep getting better.

Get to the point where you are looking at the good qualities within you more than you see the bad, to where you say I am at this point and I am okay with myself. I wrote a guide to help so look out for it in the near future.

Everything you have done so far is brilliant, up to this point. I mean, you are who you are now because of all you have done before this moment. Beyond this point your next step is to improve yourself to hit your next level of success.

You will find that improving yourself is 10x easier than you would have thought once you make a conscious effort to appreciate yourself. Taking on better habits is not an uncommon side effect.

Just this change alone tipped the first domino on my weight loss journey, and now I am full speed ahead to 8% body fat. I know when I look in the mirror or my friends see me each week, I am making progress. Dive right in, keep moving forward and enjoy every experience!

I want to know a little more about you and so I am inviting you to comment and tell me about yourself. Tell me 5 of your best qualities. It could be something about your personality or your genetically colossal biceps. I want to know.

I’d love to hear what you think of this post. Please give me your honest feedback in the comments.